


On Our Way Back Home

by luninosity



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) RPF
Genre: Commitment, Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Fluff, Lazy Mornings, M/M, Porn With Plot, Sleepy Sex, affectionate!Michael, sleepy!James
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-06
Updated: 2012-11-06
Packaged: 2017-11-18 03:03:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/556167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lazy mornings, sunlight, Michael finding interesting ways to awaken sleepy James, a story that was meant to be PWP but suddenly grew all this emotional hurt/comfort plot, because Michael needs to make sure James knows how much he's loved and deserves to be loved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On Our Way Back Home

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to the lovely mcfassy LJ community people for some thoughtful commentary on James's eyes. title from Supertramp’s “Give A Little Bit”: _give a little bit of your love to me/ I’ll give a little bit of my love to you/ now’s the time that we need to share/ so send a smile and show you care…_

Morning. The sun tiptoed in through the crack in the curtains and painted James’s bare arm with gold, but carefully, not wanting to disturb him.

Michael understood that particular impulse very well. Caught himself smiling, at the sunlight, at the rumpled sheets, at the sensation of James’s breath, inhales and exhales forming duets across Michael’s own skin. Sunday laziness. Freckles like scattered cinnamon sugar from the previous night’s after-sex cookie-baking experiments. Memories of all that pale skin, those blue eyes, beneath him, laughing up at him, surrounding him, the night before, explosions and fireworks of joy in his veins.

The glowing aftermath, heartbeats and fingertips entwined. Sweetness, soaking into his bones.

That sunbeam drifted a bit lower. Played merrily with the hollows and planes of James’s exposed back, picking out all the compact muscles, so different from Michael’s own lean frame, and so beloved. James’d fallen asleep, the night before, with his head on Michael’s shoulder and one arm flung over Michael’s chest, holding on, holding him close. Michael’d kissed him, gently, and put both arms around him in return—I’m here, I’m not leaving you, not ever—and listened for those breaths to slide into the cadence of sleep, James utterly content and convinced and reassured, here in his arms, before he’d let himself drift into the safety of dreams as well.

James sighed, possibly feeling the curious tickling of the sunbeam, and cuddled himself more closely into Michael’s hold. “Shh,” Michael told him, “it’s fine, you don’t have to wake up yet,” and rubbed a hand across James’s naked back, in case the sunbeam tried anything treacherous.

James made a small happy noise in response to this protectiveness, and then moved a hand, seemingly randomly, onto Michael’s stomach. Lower.

“…um, James?”

No answer. Not even open eyes.

“Oh…um, okay. Um…you’re not actually awake, are you?” Whereas certain parts of Michael definitely were, now.

He looked at James, in the friendly sunbeam, again. Beautiful. James would never believe it, always blushed and laughed and made jokes about Michael’s low standards when Michael complimented him, but he was. Beautiful, and complicated, multilayered facets of wicked humor and terrible self-doubt and genuine generosity to strangers. Smiling exuberance like preemptive armor against pain. The boundless empathy that let him slide so easily into his characters, knowing all their flaws and looking at them with compassion regardless, inviting the world to be friends and laugh along.

The world always did. Those cheerful blue eyes were captivating. And Michael, like every other person James’d ever smiled at or glanced towards or idly asked for the time of day, had been captivated.

Unlike every other person, he’d been the one allowed inside that armor. The one who got to hold James, in the dark moments, when all those subtle creeping voices of fear and uncertainty and self-loathing, memories out of the past, became too loud. The one who could keep talking to him, a shield when James’s own hard-won defenses failed to be enough, until blue eyes looked up and smiled hesitantly and James held him in return.

“I love you,” he said now, very softly, and kissed the top of James’s head, because he could and it was there.

James sighed again, and shifted position against him, and Michael watched acres of freckles in rippling motion, and all the emotions, the luckiness and the gratitude and the affection and the protective impulse, abruptly resolved themselves into one very specific word: desire.

He ran fingers over that broad back, one more time. All his senses prickled with it. Arousal radiating outward from his fingertips. At every touch.

James stretched a leg out, toes brushing Michael’s ankles, then tucked it in between Michael’s calves and left it there. Went back to being motionless and serene, in the morning light.

“Hmm…all right, what happens if I touch you here?” This time he walked the fingers, deliberately, lower. Over smooth curves, soft and vulnerable and sleep-warmed to his explorations.

James made a wordless sound, affectionate and agreeing, and didn’t protest when Michael nudged him over onto his back, either. Perfect.

He did let out a small inquisitive noise, mellow and drowsy, when Michael’s tongue wandered over his hip and closer to his cock, half-awake and interested as the rest of him. Managed to say, “Michael?”, voice still tangled up in Scottish fuzziness and sleep.

“Go back to sleep,” Michael murmured, against his thigh, “you looked happy,” and James blinked at him, yawned, and didn’t quite re-close the eyes, but lay there watching, sapphires glinting lazily from half-open lids.

“Mmm…”

“Oh, you like that? You taste spectacular, you know. You’ll probably like this, too…” He wrapped one hand around the base of James’s cock. Stroked his tongue over the tip. Paused, teasing, just for a second; heard the tiny whimper, and promptly opened his mouth and took all of James inside, sucking, caressing, finding that familiar tempo, the one that made James shiver and move unthinkingly underneath him.

“Michael…”

“You,” Michael said, in between long, drawn-out, licks, all of James sliding along his tongue, “were asleep. Stay asleep. This is you having a fantastic dream, all right?”

“I thought I was…”

“Are you still talking?”

He actually did stop. James wasn’t all that awake, despite the attempt at sentences; Michael could recall several occasions on which James’d managed to hold an entire interview, pre-coffee, and remember nothing anyone’d said, two minutes later. Given ten or fifteen uninterrupted quiet seconds of being cuddled, James’s love affair with lazy mornings would win out.

He waited. It worked this time, too. The eyes drifted shut, and the breathing evened out again, and James nestled a bit more securely into the pillows. The pillows, for their part, eyed Michael with innocently blank white grins, and waited also.

James shouldn’t have to be awake early in the morning. James should be cuddled by the pillows, and kissed by Michael, and shown, in every possible way, with lips and tongue and teeth and words, how much Michael wanted to take care of him, to be there for him, to love him, when he was exhausted or excited or frustrated or simply, purely, truly happy.

He watched James sleep, for a while. That luxurious voice would probably laugh and tease him about creepily obsessive behavior, and it would be a joke, playfulness like spiced warmth in the chocolate-whisky folds of that splendid accent, because James did trust him wholeheartedly; but it’d also be more or less than a joke, not because James honestly thought he was being creepy but because James equally honestly couldn’t understand why Michael would ever want to watch him sleep.

Michael shook his head, at that one, even though no one but the bed and the sunbeams would see. James, framed and cushioned by fluffy white pillows, hair falling mischievously into his face, was the definition of irresistible. And Michael couldn’t resist. Didn’t want to.

He moved a bit more slowly this time, trying to make it only another piece of those dreams, languid and seductive and decadent. Lavished attention on all those inches, hardness and silk and heat, and felt the corresponding response, James’s cock stirring in his hands, his mouth, anticipatory sudden twitches, pulses of liquid warmth that Michael licked up as they spilled, leaking, tantalizing promises.

He put a hand on James’s hip. James woke up enough to blink at him; Michael whispered, “Shh, you’re amazing, you don’t have to do anything, just let me,” and James blinked again, and yawned, and Michael kind of wanted to laugh, right in the middle of everything, and also wanted to kiss James everywhere forever, just so he could see that surprisedly curious look again.

He coaxed James onto his stomach, which earned a little grumble of complaint—Michael had, after all, stopped touching his cock, and the friction of the bed just wasn’t the same—but James relaxed again, compliant and trusting, when Michael’s hand slid up between his legs, and higher.

Blue eyes peeked at him from under the hair, when Michael leaned over to find their lube; Michael kissed his shoulder, softly, and then put a hand on that shoulder and flattened him back into the pillows. James actually smiled—and he really was awake, now, Michael could see the amused expression, brighter than the sunshine—and then stretched out every delectable limb, yawned again, purposefully this time, and shut his eyes. And then opened one to glance at him, because James might be the best actor in the world on camera, but he never _would_ be good at hiding his own cheerful impatience, when he wanted something very badly. And Michael loved him for that too.

So he said, out loud but quietly, and completely, entirely sincere, “You have no idea how many mornings I’ve wanted to do this, waking up next to you, wanting to wake you up this way,” and James smiled one more time, stopped trying to sneak cheating glimpses, but did part his legs a bit more: consent, desire, acceptance, love.

“I love you,” Michael informed him, one more reminder, and then eased that first finger inside him, through the glimmering morning air, feeling muscles tremble and yield for the initial invasion. Two fingers, all slick with lubrication, sliding in and out of James’s body, opening him, leaving him wet and ready and waiting for Michael’s pleasure.

When he pushed the fingers back inside, he did it more deeply, finding the angle he knew James liked, that secret electric spot quivering with need, and stroked. Hard.

James gasped. Tensed, in place, and moaned something that sounded like Michael’s name into the pillows. “Please…”

“No, you can’t move. You’re supposed to be asleep, remember? We both know how tired you were, after yesterday’s scenes, after what we did—what you let me do, with you—last night. So this is me taking care of you, James. Letting you sleep…letting you sleep _in_ …” He punctuated that last word with the appropriate movement; James moaned again, not arguing, but pleading. “Helping you relax. So just…let me touch you? Please?”

“Michael,” James sighed, but quit attempting to push back against his hand. “All right…I love you, you know that. And if you…you want this? Me? Like this? I’m not—you’re not letting me do anything, for you, and I’m not—”

Michael sighed, too, but only inwardly, and bent forward to kiss him again, the back of his neck where the giddy waves of hair met spiraling freckles, then downward, the lonely little place behind the right shoulderblade where tension so often collected after a long day, the straight arrow of his spine just before it met the appetizing curves of that backside, those legs, so disproportionately long for someone that adorably perfect size.

“You are doing something for me. This, now, and every morning. You…” He flicked his fingers over that spot again, because the reinforcement seemed to be necessary. James whimpered, very satisfactorily. “Every time I wake up next to you I want to smile. You make me feel like I can do anything, because you believe in me, you always have, even back before we were—before we were here.” One more time. James was quivering everywhere, caught up in the sensations, in the sound of his voice.

“You do that for everyone, though. You look at the world and see all the ways it’s brilliant, or how it could be brilliant, and you believe in charitable causes and you know the names of all the extras on set and you get everyone to laugh when we’re filming at three am in the snow and you make the world better, you make me want to be better, because I love you. And you don’t always have to be trying so hard to make me happy, you make me happy every day, and you deserve to be loved, you _do_ , and I—”

He had to pause, for a second, to force back all the unanticipated tears. What if James didn’t believe him? What if James never believed him? He’d say it forever, of course. He wouldn’t give up. Not an option. Not ever.

But James wasn’t saying anything, either. And the sunlight was very quiet, too.

James pushed himself up on both elbows, though, possibly hearing that thought. Twisted around, impressively flexible, to gaze at Michael’s face. At this moment, in these positions, they were the same height, eye to eye.

Michael swallowed again. Wanted to say something else, wanted to move, to demonstrate exactly how profoundly he meant all the words, but he just wasn’t sure.

James shook irrepressible hair out of his eyes. Smiled. “I make you happy, you said.”

He could only nod. Hoped that’d be enough.

“So…this was making you happy. Making me feel happy, I mean. Me being happy makes you…I think I need a synonym for happy. But I can’t really think of good synonyms with your hand where it is.”

“Oh…sorry? And yes…yes, it does, you do, you make me happy, and—”

“Not sorry. I don’t want you to move. And you said…you don’t want me to offer—what you were doing for me—for you? You want me to lie here, and be all decadent and lazy, and let you make me feel good?”

“Yes. Please.”

“That’s…”

“I know. I know it’s not—easy, for you. But, James…” He had one free hand. Reached over and set it on top of James’s, amid the pillows. “I want to. Honestly. Besides, you have no idea how sexy you are, in the mornings.”

“I haven’t even had coffee yet!”

“I know that, too. You look all…sleepy and kitten-like and warm. Sorry. I might need to borrow your non-existent synonyms. But seriously…when I said you were doing something for me, I meant it. You trust me. You sleep naked next to me. You let me kiss you awake. And sometimes other things. And that’s—”

“Michael?”

“What is it?”

“I love you, you know.”

“I…you know I love you too. Forever, James. For fucking _ever_.”

“…interesting choice of words, considering.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“Why not?” James grinned at him, despite the lingering suspicious brightness in those eyes, tides washing through the oceans, leaving shining treasure revealed, after long years, on the shore. “You did say you wanted me to not move, right? To be all…warm and sleepy? I can do that. Especially pre-coffee.”

“James…”

“I love you,” James said, and met Michael’s eyes for a second, then unfolded elbows and settled back down into the bed. The pillows approved, voiceless but gleeful. Michael remembered how to breathe, through the sudden rush of headspinning delight, and decided he felt pretty damn gleeful, too.

“So…if I were still asleep, and you were waking me up, the way you want to…”

“I think I’d start here.” He rested his hand on James’s ass. Those curves fit into his hand neatly, made for his fingers, his palm, his touch. “Just touching you, at first…not enough to disturb you. But you might be cold, sleeping naked and all. You might need me to warm you up.”

“Hmm…all right. I might be even more comfortable, then, with you keeping me warm. Possibly you’ll have to try harder, if you want me to be coherent at any point.”

“I might like you incoherent.” Which made James grin, and then plainly recall that he was supposed to be in character and tuck the expression away for later. Michael caught himself grinning, too, at that. “But you do make a very good point. I want you awake enough to enjoy yourself, after all. But maybe not quite yet. Right now I want you…peaceful. It’s a good dream.”

“It has you in it. Or in me, I should say. Oh, sorry, I should stop talking, shouldn’t I, if you want—”

“No, this is kind of fun. But…yes, maybe, for now. While I touch you more. While you’re so receptive, because you feel safe, because it _is_ a good dream, because you trust me—”

“I do. Sorry! Really! Go on, then. I love you.”

“Don’t apologize. Also don’t interrupt me. You’re not awake. So I think I’d take advantage of that, just a little bit, I’d never hurt you, you know that, but right now you’d let me do anything, all sort of dreamy and accommodating, so if I push your legs apart, like _this_ , and I put my fingers _here_ …”

“…oh.”

“I could do this with my mouth, next time. I’ve thought about it, opening you up that way, letting you feel that, too, me tasting you—”

“Oh my _god_.”

“—but not this time, I think. I want to be able to kiss you. And also I might actually spontaneously combust if we try that one. Just so you know.”

James no longer seemed able to talk. Only blinked at him, somewhat dazed, when Michael leaned over to check.

“Still good?”

A very emphatic nod. Good, then. More.

“So…you’re probably a bit more awake, now. Looking up at me, with that expression—yes, exactly that one, in fact—and realizing that _these_ are my fingers, in you, getting you ready for me, and you _are_ ready for me, aren’t you? And you want me inside you?”

He could hear James breathing, rapid little gulps of air; James licked his lips, looked like he wanted to say something, but then only smiled, and those legs fell apart more widely, over the expanse of the enthralled sheets and bed.

Michael smiled back. Kept the fingers stroking, over that spot, steady repetition, leisurely and unhurried, until James was practically delirious with the need to move, to find release, to _come_. Whispering his name, pleading, into the pillows.

When he stopped this time, deliberately, James almost sobbed with frustration. Excellent. “You want me. But you’re surprised, and you _are_ exhausted—”

Part of the role-playing, of course. But also true. He knew how worn out James’d been, by the demands of the ocean-rescue scene. He’d been tired, too, of course, but mostly he’d been in one place, underwater, flailing around. James, not in any kind of protective wetsuit, had had to dive in after him and pull him up, too many times for them both to count due to lighting difficulties and problematic camera angles. And then he’d left James thoroughly satisfied and tired out and euphoric, later that night. He couldn’t quite manage to feel guilty about that one, even though he wanted to.

He could manage some other things, however. Such as what they were doing right now.

“—so you aren’t going to even try to move, or interrupt me. You’re only going to lie here, under me…and let me do what I want, with you, to you…inside you…and you’re going to let me. Until I decide we’re done. Clear?”

James lay there and stared at him, which Michael took as a good sign, but it wasn’t a yes, so he waited, considerately, until the wide eyes figured out that an answer was expected.

“I…you…yes? Please.”

“Good. Do you want me inside you, James?”

“Yes _please_.”

“Then you can have me. Anything you want. Forever.” James was still lying sprawled face-down over the bed, a languid invitation to all sorts of delectable sins, but this was about making those sapphire-sea eyes turn enormous and hazy and dark with pleasure, the look he wanted to see always, and James had said he wanted Michael. So Michael would oblige. With pleasure.

All that skin felt warm, flushed with sleep and the silkiness of the sheets and the heat of arousal, when Michael settled on top of him. James murmured something into the pillows, not quite words, only inarticulate acceptance, and let Michael’s hands reposition his hips a fraction, Michael’s breath caress his neck.

No hesitation, no resistance. Only himself and James, so malleable in his hands, compliant and sweet and surrendering control. To him. Trusting him.

His cock slipped inside James slowly, inch by inch, extending the moment, exquisitely prolonged. Dreamlike. Reverberations throughout both their bodies.

James whimpered again, trembled under him, clearly forgetting the roles, forgetting everything, desperate now, needing him, needing _more_ , craving more.

“Shh,” Michael breathed, a reminder, and ceased moving altogether; James cried out, hungry little noises that the pillows caught and gathered up and hid away in pale fabric folds. “You don’t need to do anything. You don’t _get_ to do anything. You get to stay here, and let me make you feel good—to feel this—” One quick thrust, and he sank all the way home, buried in all that superheated warmth, slick and wet and dizzyingly erotic, and he fought for self-control and barely won, especially after the consequent astonished gasp.

“I want you to feel beautiful, James. Because you are. And I want you. You know how much I want you. This—” Out, and back in, enough force to prompt that lovely breathless noise again. “This is for you. What you do, to me.”

“Michael,” James whispered, surprising him; he’d not expected James to be capable of words. “—love you.”

“And I love you. You can talk?”

“No…” James turned his head, enough for a flash of smile. “Speechless. But…” And then another small shiver, but one of complete acquiescence, all those sturdy muscles relaxing for him, obedient to Michael’s earlier command. His for the taking. Because James wanted to be.

As a reward, he lifted James’s hips, slightly; James moved easily, fluidly, at the physical demand. And then moved once more, doubtless inadvertently. As if he couldn’t hold still, at the feeling of Michael’s hand on his cock, arousal pressing through long fingers, wet and aching with need.

He’d meant everything to last longer. Had formed vague plans to keep James hovering on that edge, extended waves of bliss, until neither of them could wait any longer. But all at once he was the one who couldn’t wait. Not with James offering him everything, embodying his most marvelous fantasies, and joyfully, freely, submitting to him. Smiling at him. Believing his words.

Loving him.

He had to move, there was no way he couldn’t move, in the wake of that smile; he felt rather than heard James cry out again, but in pleasure at the forcefulness, not in pain, so he pushed further, faster, harder, feeling James all around him, the taste of those freckles on his tongue when he gathered James underneath him and kissed that shoulder one more time, not a real kiss because they were both breathless now, only his open mouth against James’s skin, lips and tongue and teeth, and the teeth got James to nearly scream, hips snapping upwards.

Michael whispered, over the still-wet mark, “You liked that, didn’t you, you want me to do it again,” and James moaned, body tightening around him, and shuddered, everywhere, in his hold.

He did it again. James made an even more interesting sound, and Michael put a hand on his nearest wrist, pinning it to the closest fluffy pillow, probably too hard, but James didn’t seem to care, only trembled again, helpless tiny motions because that was all he could manage under Michael’s weight, uncoordinated and pleading. Michael whispered back, “I love you, I want you to come for me, James, please, now,” and James didn’t even make a sound, this time, only went impossibly still beneath him, lips parted, body shaking, as his orgasm spilled out through Michael’s fingers, and then Michael found himself falling over the edge too, as all the glorious sensations reached out and pulled him into silent white heat.

After a while he woke up enough to say, “James?”

There was a pause, almost long enough for him to start to be afraid, and then, “Mmm…”

“You…are you…was that…good? I mean…”

“That was…that. No words. Not even the synonyms. Michael…”

“You still didn’t say yes. About the good. Or not good. Was it not—”

“It was extraordinary. You’re extraordinary. Um…can you hold me? For a minute?”

“Of course yes.” He sat up, slid out, as gently as he could, and winced when James did. Too rough. Too hard. He could see the marks, fading but pink, on that pale skin, the eloquent curve at the meeting-place of neck and shoulder.

“Here, is this—I can move if you—”

“No, this is fine. I like your arms there. I’m only…I feel…I don’t know yet. Kind of…lighter, I think. Like being off-balance, but…in a good way. Does that make sense?”

“Um…not really? Sorry. Also I love you.”

“And I love you. It’s like…” James wriggled around, found a position from which he could look Michael in the eyes. Michael looked back, worriedly. James smiled, sunlight in his hair and in the depths of those eyes, illuminating the oceans, all the way down.

“Intense,” James said, finally. Michael remembered how to breathe. “It was…intense. Especially toward the end…”

“But…you liked that?” He tried to keep the concern out of his voice. Mostly succeeded; or maybe not, considering that James felt the urge to lean over and kiss him on the nose, after.

“I did. I could like that again. Not immediately—I’m not sure I’d survive another round, to be honest—but…it felt like…weightlessness, maybe. Flight. Except I knew I had you to come back down to. Um…not the best metaphor, but you did say you liked me incoherent.”

“I’ll always be here for you to come back down to. And yes…I think I do.”

“So do I. So we’re doing that again, then. Later. Michael…you said you thought I was beautiful. Before coffee, half-asleep, hair in my eyes…”

“James, I always think you’re beautiful. With or without coffee. Obviously even when you’re asleep. And I love your hair. And your eyes.” He brushed a curl of it back from James’s face, for emphasis; James turned his head, kissed Michael’s hand, so he left it there, cupping that cheek and all the freckles, until James looked up again.

He knew how James felt about those eyes. Not all the time, but sometimes. In darker times. Those eyes, that incredible richness of color, hadn’t been an inheritance from anyone James still considered family. And mostly James’d made peace with that, had made a life for himself, tried not to care whether he ever saw again the man who’d walked out on his mother and their family; Michael knew all that. He also knew that, occasionally, one compliment too many, one unexpected glimpse of that too-blue gaze in a mirror on a bad day, could cut more deeply, and faster, than anyone else suspected.

“I love you,” he said again, softly, trying to infuse each word with honesty, “and that means I love all of you. Every bit of you. And I also get to tell you you’re beautiful, all right?”

“You _get_ to,” James said, and laughed, unevenly, clear as the sunlight, now pouring itself steadily across the plushly carpeted floor, decorating the rumpled disaster of the sheets, gilding the morning air. “It’s not exactly any sort of privilege—”

“Yes it is!”

“You—Michael—I said weightless, didn’t I? Because I think that’s right. You…make things easier. Lighter. Everything. You make me smile when I don’t think I can, and you tell me you love my eyes because they’re my eyes, not anyone else’s, and you—you can even make me believe that you want me. Want to make me happy, I mean. I wouldn’t—I can’t believe that, I never _have_ , you know I—except I think now maybe I do. With you. I want to, anyway. I love you. Um…also, did you call me kitten-like, earlier? Because I feel like I should be offended about that. But I think I’m too happy to bother.”

“You…yes, I did…it seemed to fit…still does…I love you. So much. Come here and let me kiss you.”

“Not arguing—are you crying?”

“No…”

“Yes, you are. Was it the insult to your adjective choice? Sorry. I can be kitten-like if you want. And you can pet me. I might even purr. Or maybe bite you. Like this.”

“…I think technically that’s not biting…oh, okay, _that_ is, we’re doing that…and you taste fantastic. I love kissing you. I love you. You said you were happy. I—are you happy? With me?”

“Michael,” James said, and licked his lips, and Michael’s heart sped up and performed an excited little dance in his chest, because those blue eyes were laughing, unshadowed and brilliant and elated, “I’m happy because of you.”


End file.
